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Australia Housing Cracks Emerge Across Queensland CoastApartment prices in the luxury beachside Australian town of Noosa Heads have tumbled by a fifth since 2008 as cracks emerge in a housing market that’s so far escaped the rout seen in the U.S., U.K. and Ireland.

The median apartment price in the tourism and retiree town 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Brisbane has slumped 21 percent in three years to A$570,000 ($594,000), according to the Real Estate Institute of Queensland. Sales have more than halved across Queensland state’s Sunshine coast, home to “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo, and the Gold Coast, known for its surfing beaches and casinos.

“We have a very overvalued housing market and even a small adverse shock can be magnified by a large adverse impact on property values,” said Gerard Minack, Sydney-based global developed markets strategist at Morgan Stanley (MS), who asserts Australian home prices are as much as 40 percent overvalued. “We’re seeing that now in parts of Queensland.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/noosa-queensland-coast-slip-as-australia-housing-cracks-emerge.html

1.Property Slowdown Sees Lend Lease Default Swaps Surge: Australia CreditThe cost of insuring debt of Lend Lease Group (LLC), Australia’s biggest construction company, has doubled relative to Asia-Pacific developers in the past year as the highest interest rates in the developed world take a bite out of house prices and slow construction of new homes. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-03/housing-slowdown-sees-lend-lease-swaps-surge-australia-credit.html

2‘Unprecedented’ Retail Slump Tanks Shopping-Mall Bonds: Australia CreditA drop in Australian consumer demand that sparked the biggest weekly slump in retail stocks in more than two years is spilling into the nation’s credit markets.

The cost to protect the bonds of mall owner Westfield Group jumped to an eight-month high last week after David Jones Ltd. (DJS) cut profit forecasts and a report showed consumer confidence fell by the most since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in 2008. Government bond yields declined the most in more than 2 1/2 years as investors added to bets the central bank will lower interest rates. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-17/-unprecedented-retail-slump-tanks-shopping-mall-bonds-australia-credit.html

320110715-Westpac-Australian consumers much less positive on house priceshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/60738951/20110715-Westpac-Australian-Consumers-Much-Less-Positive-on-House-Prices

4 mozliwe obnizki stóp w australii - po raz pierwszy od dawna...

Australian Dollar Down Late On Westpac's Call On RBA Rate Cut SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--The Australian dollar slid Friday on a surprise prediction by one of the country's leading banks that the Australian central bank will cut rates in the coming months.

After the currency had remained relatively quiet for much of the day, it was given a jolt late by Westpac Banking Corp.'s decision to became the first major domestic bank to forecast interest rate cuts in Australia, sending a worrying signal for one of the world's strongest economies. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110715-702294.html

1/2@australiaBanks told to prepare for the worstJONATHAN SHAPIRO AND ANDREW CORNELL

APRA’s John Laker wants to know the impact of external crises. Photo: Lee BesfordAustralian banks have been ordered to urgently stress test their ability to withstand a sharp rise in unemployment, a ­collapse in the property ­market and economic recession amid rising anxiety over the European debt crisis.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has told banks to model what would happen if the European meltdown spread to Australia through a series of stress tests designed to ensure the strength of the local banking system.

The regulator has given the banks just one week to model the impact of a worst-case scenario resulting in contraction in gross domestic product, an unemployment rate of 12 per cent, as well as a 30 per cent decline in house prices and a 40 per cent drop in commercial property values.

Bank executives told The Australian Financial Review the worst case scenario was extreme and difficult to model given the short weekend deadline. “We think that’s probably part of the test,” said one senior banker. “If you can’t do this modelling or say you’re not sure of the impact, APRA will be onto it.”

The stress test has been prompted by an escalation of the European sovereign debt ­crisis that could lead to a global recession and a hard landing in China.

It comes in the same week that the Reserve Bank of Australia’s deputy governor, Ric Battellino, warned that Australia’s indirect exposure to Europe “through the effect on some of our important trading partners, could be significant”.

The European Banking Authority was created in January this year to stress test troubled banks in the region. The EBA released its latest quarterly stress test results earlier this month revising the capital shortfall to €114.7 billion ($151 billion).

The short notice and time frame allowed by APRA, particularly in light of negative comments from the RBA, indicates the regulator is ­preparing for a difficult 2012.

Bank sources say there is no suggestion APRA is concerned about existing credit quality and assessment. Rather, the authority is seeking to understand the impact of a severe external shock. The APRA missive has had bank treasurers and risk officers scrambling in a week in which three of the big banks held annual meetings.

Australia’s banks have limited exposure to Europe, totalling $87.2 billion, or 2.7 per cent of assets, according to the RBA. Of that amount, $74.6 billion is exposed to borrowers in core nations – France Germany and the Netherlands – mostly to banks.

APRA, which declined to comment, has conducted stress tests on Australia’s banks in the past, as have international agencies and credit raters.

In 2003, the regulator tested the banks’ resilience to a sharp fall in house prices. It concluded that while Australia’s banks could withstand a sharp fall in property values, mortgage insurance providers would struggle to withstand claims.

APRA again tested the banks in 2005 and 2006 to determine their ability to withstand a three-year stressed scenario where unemployment rose to 8.75 per cent as house prices fell by 30 per cent.

While profits would decline as bad debts and funding costs increased, the banks would not lose money and could withstand a short, sharp downturn because of their larger weighting to mortgages.

APRA did not discuss or make the findings public until long after the tests were conducted.

In recent months, independent stress tests have been conducted on the Australian banks in response to overseas investors’ concerns that Australia’s high property prices and elevated levels of indebtedness left the nation’s lenders exposed to a bursting of the housing bubble.

In January this year, Fitch Ratings conducted an independent stress test on Australia’s big four banks.

Fitch concluded that, in the event of a severe property downturn, the banks would be hit with cumulative losses of $6 billion and a 25 per cent decline in operating profit over three years.

Credit analysts at investment bank Deutsche Bank also conducted an impact study on the major banks whereby mortgage defaults rose by 9 per cent and housing prices fell by 30 per cent.

Deutsche Bank concluded the banks were unlikely to experience losses of more than $8 billion.

Both tests showed that low loan-to-value ratios, or the high level of equity within mortgages, provided a buffer in the event of house prices falling sharply.

APRA’s latest test is clearly based on a worst-case scenario because it does not allow the banks to assume any management mitigation.

Bankers believe the regulator will request modelling of a second and even third scenario.

“For example, the first round assumes no write-offs of bad debts, which means you can’t realise any tax losses, leaving you with a deferred balance sheet asset but no capital relief,” one risk officer said.

“That’s not realistic and it guarantees them a bad outcome, but then we would expect APRA to work backwards to see what impact mitigation measures by management might have. This first wave though is a pretty raw, theoretical piece of work.”